


boys like you

by wordstruck



Series: filterverse [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (not that they know it yet), Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - Idols, Banter, Falling In Love, First Impressions, Flirting, Frontman Iwaizumi Hajime, Idol Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime Does Not Like Pretty Boys, M/M, Oikawa Tooru Is A Brat, Pre-Slash, music industry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/wordstruck
Summary: (It’s easy to pick out the flaws in Oikawa’s performance, really. His voice is different from Iwaizumi’s — airier where Iwaizumi has a slight rasp; wistful where Iwaizumi sings frustration. He brings a different tone to the song, a different intention. He evenlookswrong, seated there in his slouchy grey sweater, cheeks flushed under the studio lights.But all three members of Se!joh sit there, quiet, captivated, watching Oikawa sing. And Iwaizumi thinks,ah shit.)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: filterverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706830
Comments: 28
Kudos: 242





	boys like you

**Author's Note:**

> i'll come up with a character board for everyone's roles and relationships in this AU 'verse eventually, but for now just know: oikawa is a popular idol named REIGN, who is signing a collab with indie rock band Se!joh. they do not get along at first, but they will fall in love. eventually. after taking the long way around.
> 
> outfits inspired by [@teaffeine's iwaoi art](https://twitter.com/teaffeine/status/1250769310760398848) of my [idol!oikawa x frontman!iwaizumi AU thread](https://twitter.com/redluxite/status/1248962619081285632). 
> 
> this one-shot is just about their first meeting XD also this AU 'verse is absolutely an excuse for iwaizumi to sing a bunch of my favorite songs by the killers. somewhat edited but i'll fix anything in retrospect. enjoy the tropey first meeting!!

* * *

Iwaizumi’s first impression of Oikawa Tooru is pretty, bratty, and pretty fucking bratty.

For starters, the idol-slash-model sensation is late. Se!joh had arrived promptly at 2:00pm with their management, but while Sawauchi, Ao-Jo’s weary talent supervisor, and his assistant Kindaichi are already present, Oikawa and his manager are nowhere to be found. Iwaizumi’s bandmates had managed to behave for ten minutes, but as time ticks closer to 2:30pm, Hanamaki and Matsukawa have devolved into whispered bickering over whatever it is they’re looking at on their phones.

“I’ll, ah,” Kindaichi says sheepishly, standing back up, “try to contact them again.”

He shuffles out of the room, fingers stabbing at his phone screen in his panic. Iwaizumi feels bad for him, really — it’s neither Kindaichi’s nor Sawauchi’s fault that Oikawa isn’t here yet. He’s aware the other man’s schedule is probably far more demanding than theirs; Sawauchi had mentioned something about a morning photoshoot likely holding him up. Still, there’s such a thing as _basic respect_ and _managing your time_ and _not being fucking late to important meetings involving significant career decisions—_

In all honesty, Iwaizumi’s perception of Oikawa Tooru has never been charitable. Both REIGN — Oikawa’s stage name — and Se!joh are contracted to Ao-Jo Studios, but given that they work in wildly different genres, they’ve never interacted once. Arguably Ao-Jo’s most successful talent, Oikawa’s face and accolades are plastered on all sorts of advertisements, and his singles get blasted in seemingly every public space Iwaizumi has ever been. And while Iwaizumi can _theoretically_ appreciate Oikawa’s pretty boy aesthetic and his undoubtable dance talents, he can’t look at REIGN’s face on a billboard and think anything other than _superficial._ That trademark cheeky grin, that artfully tousled hair, that carefully curated attitude that he presents to press and fans alike — it feels like a thin veneer of paint.

His tardiness is doing nothing to soften this perception in the slightest.

“Relax, Iwaizumi-san,” Watari says from his seat on the adjacent armchair. “They’re probably just running a little late.”

“A _little_ late is five minutes,” Iwaizumi counters, brow scrunching. Beside him on the couch, Hanamaki and Matsukawa perk up.

“Now, now, Iwaizumi-san,” Hanamaki parrots, serious tone at odds with his shit-eating grin, “no need to be so prickly.”

Matsukawa leans forward with a matching expression. “We know you’re a porcupine—”

“—but we just need to be patient—”

“—and his majesty the Grand King will show up—”

“Remind me why I stuck it out with you two,” Iwaizumi cuts in, before the other two get too into whatever ridiculous spiel they’re building up. Hanamaki just laughs, throwing an arm around his shoulders and giving him a shake.

“Well, it’s the fate of plebeians to wait upon royalty, as it were,” he says with a rueful sigh. “All we can do is wait until his majesty decides to grace us with his presence.”

“Which is hopefully soon,” Matsukawa adds. “I’m getting hungry.”

“I can get food,” Watari pipes up, with some relief. 

“We had lunch before this,” Iwaizumi points out, cocking an eyebrow. “A _lot_ of lunch, if I remember right, since you two like eating me out of house and home—”

“We can’t help it, you know, we’re growing boys—”

A flurry of activity interrupts Iwaizumi’s attempt to smack Matsukawa while leaning across Hanamaki’s lap. The door bursts open again, with a harried Kindaichi bowing and apologizing all over the place. He’s followed by a young man with a frankly ridiculous haircut that Iwaizumi vaguely recognizes, and Kunimi, whom Iwaizumi _does_ recognize as Ao-Jo’s in-house legal consultant. And finally — sunglasses pushed up into his stupid hair, blue-and-red plaid shirt falling off his shoulders, coffee cup in hand and trademark smile in place — Oikawa Tooru arrives.

“So sorry we’re late,” he says breezily, throwing himself onto the remaining free couch. “Let’s get started.”

The ‘significant career decision’ is, on the surface, pretty straightforward, really.

REIGN and Se!joh are among Ao-Jo Studios’ best performers, with plenty of acclaim among their respective genres' fan bases and critics. It’s not a stretch to propose a collaboration between them, with the band creating a music track for which Oikawa will write and sing the vocals. It’s also a mutually beneficial deal — Se!joh will get a ‘boost’ from Oikawa’s ever-growing popularity, while Oikawa gets to branch out into a ‘new sound’ to ‘add variety’.

“Depending on the success of the single, we might even bump it up one or two more songs,” Sawauchi adds, tapping one of the many papers scattered on the coffee table. He smiles politely at everyone in the room, sitting back to let everyone digest the proposition.

Iwaizumi glances over at Watari studiously poring over their end of the contract. They’d already talked this over, of course, back when the company had first approached them with the offer. He, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa are unanimous in their answer. Across from them, Oikawa’s manager — a smart kid named Yahaba — is discussing something in hushed tones with his client. Oikawa himself is being surprisingly serious about this, frowning at his own contract through glasses (glasses!) he’d produced from gods-know-where, and nodding along to whatever his manager is saying. 

(Iwaizumi, annoyingly enough, finds his eyes drawn to Oikawa whenever his attention wanders. He won’t — can’t — deny that the idol is attractive; he has to be, in their line of work. Oikawa is all long legs in dark jeans, sharp shoulders under slouchy sleeves. But it all feels — not perfect, no. _Calculated,_ perhaps. Deliberate, strategic; like an ornate handle to a fine-edged dagger.

Oikawa catches him once, turning his head and meeting Iwaizumi’s eyes across the coffee table. His gaze holds, one breath, three, four, and Iwaizumi feels — searched, studied. Assessed. He flicks his own gaze away, but the feeling of Oikawa watching him lingers.)

“Any objections?” Sawauchi prompts, once the silence has stretched on a little too long.

“We’ll have to review the official contracts more thoroughly,” Yahaba says distractedly, half-turning his attention back to the room’s other occupants. “But so far, none. It’s a promising partnership.”

“That should be fine.” Sawauchi offers a quick smile, then turns to the other party. “As for you…?”

Watari glances at his clients, mouth twisted in uncertainty. Hanamaki makes a face, Matsukawa gestures carelessly, and Iwaizumi pointedly directs his gaze to the idol on the other couch. Meanwhile, Oikawa is now scrolling through something on his phone, coffee cup hovering just under parted lips.

“It’s not an objection, exactly,” Watari hedges. “More of a condition?”

“...what kind of condition, exactly?” Sawauchi replies, brow furrowed. Yahaba elbows Oikawa twice, jerking his head in Se!joh’s direction when his client finally looks up with a scowl.

“We’ll provisionally agree to the terms, but, er…” Watari grimaces. “We — that is, Se!joh as a band would like, ah—”

“We want him to audition first,” Matsukawa cuts in, pointing a thumb at Oikawa.

There is a very pregnant pause while Yahaba and Oikawa stare at Se!joh, the band stares back, and Sawauchi stares at everyone in the room before turning helplessly to Kunimi, who just shrugs. The talent supervisor steeples his fingers and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling for guidance.

“Audition?” Yahaba echoes, at the same time Oikawa leans forward with an aggressively polite smile and asks, “Now why would _I_ have to do that?”

Iwaizumi can physically _feel_ the way Hanamaki’s eyebrows rise in disbelief. It’s like they’ve just been slapped in the face, but Oikawa’s demeanor remains unfailingly pleasant on the surface. Still, something at the edges of that smile prompts Iwaizumi to lean forward and meet Oikawa’s steel-under-paper gaze head-on.

“We want to hear you sing,” he says, simple and to the point. “And no, not your — not one of your singles or recordings. _You._ Just you. To one of our songs.”

“In front of us,” Hanamaki adds helpfully.

Yahaba’s expression goes through several complicated changes before settling on something bordering skepticism. “Why?” he reiterates, clapping a hand over Oikawa’s mouth as the idol opens it. Iwaizumi has never known a pair of eyes to convey so much offense.

“He’ll be singing for _us_ ,” he points out, waving a hand in Oikawa’s general direction. “To _our_ music. I think we have the right to evaluate first before we commit.”

“Oikawa-san has a perfectly adequate vocal range—” Yahaba starts, with concern that rapidly morphs into horror after Oikawa does… something that makes his manager retract his hand with a yelp. His not-quite-grin now shows too many teeth.

“Shouldn’t I be asking the same of _you,_ Iwaizumi-san?” the other man asks, setting his coffee down with a small, pointed _thunk._

“ _We_ need to know if _you_ can match our sound,” Iwaizumi reiterates. “I don’t think we’re asking for much here, oh _grand king_.”

There is a flash of — something, in Oikawa’s expression, a there-and-gone again that Iwaizumi almost misses. A slight narrowing of eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He smooths it over, but his gaze as he leans against the couch is cooler, now. Appraising.

(There is a part of Iwaizumi that thinks, _finally._ He doesn’t know why it matters so much that he’s gotten a rise out of the picture-perfect man sitting across him, but it just — it does. It matters that Oikawa’s facade of politesse is leaking vindictiveness through the cracks. It matters that their request has broken that carefully-constructed composure, just a little.)

Beside Oikawa, Yahaba looks like he has a lemon wedged between his teeth. “This isn’t part of the con—”

“I’ll do it,” Oikawa says, as if his manager hasn’t spoken at all.

There is a second pregnant pause as this time, everyone in the room stares at Oikawa, who simply smiles and reaches for his coffee again. Even Kunimi looks a little surprised. Iwaizumi certainly is; he’d expected more protesting, really. More whining, or — something. He can feel Hanamaki shift beside him, pulling back in disbelief, while Matsukawa makes a soft, amused sound.

Across from them, Oikawa smacks his lips and looks Iwaizumi dead in the eye. The tip of his tongue flicks out, catches a stray drop at the corner of his mouth.

“Shall we?”

“When we said we wanted him to audition,” Hanamaki drawls, slumping against the cushions of the recording studio couch, “I was imagining we’d come back in like, a week.”

“Or a month, knowing his schedule,” Matsukawa adds with a snicker.

Hanamaki huffs. “Just, not literally half an hour after the formal meeting.”

Iwaizumi has to admit he feels the same. He figured Oikawa and his manager would talk it over, or even that Oikawa would vehemently refuse. It would have matched the image of a spoiled idol too used to having his way, to having people fall over themselves to win him over. Instead, Oikawa sits alone on the other side of the glass panels. He’s perched atop a stool, legs dangling down and flannel shirt tied around his waist. He’s even still wearing his glasses. Like this, he looks surprisingly — casual. Softer around the edges.

“Ready?” Yahaba asks through the mic, and Oikawa flashes a peace sign in response.

“Nerd,” Matsukawa mutters, making Hanamaki and Iwaizumi smother snorts.

“Silence in the booth,” Shido, the sound tech, calls over his shoulder. The three of them fall obediently silent, jostling each other as quietly as possible while Watari shoots them a withering look. Shido glances at Yahaba, who nods.

They hadn’t chosen a song for Oikawa to sing, actually, and Oikawa certainly hadn’t asked either. Still, Iwaizumi feels taken aback when the opening riff to _When You Were Young_ starts to play. He sits up, focus narrowing to Oikawa sitting in front of the microphone, eyes closed, hair flattened by the headphones. Oikawa’s lips part softly, waiting, and then—

(It’s easy to pick out the flaws in Oikawa’s performance, really. His voice is different from Iwaizumi’s — airier where Iwaizumi has a slight rasp; wistful where Iwaizumi sings frustration. He brings a different tone to the song, a different intention. He even _looks_ wrong, seated there in his slouchy grey sweater, cheeks flushed under the studio lights.

But all three members of Se!joh sit there, quiet, captivated, watching Oikawa sing. And Iwaizumi thinks, _ah shit._ )

A few minutes later, Oikawa exits the booth a little subdued. Iwaizumi glances at his bandmates, although he already knows what their answer will be. Watari’s eyes are wide and awed, while Yahaba has a hip propped against the sound panel, mouth quirked smugly. But just as Iwaizumi opens his mouth to say that fine, they can work together on the collaboration, and maybe that wasn’t the worst performance—

“See, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa smirks, throwing himself down onto the couch beside Iwaizumi. “Now aren’t you impressed by my stunning talents?”

A muscle on Iwaizumi’s face twitches. He reaches back for a cushion, helpfully passed over by Hanamaki. He promptly smashes it into Oikawa’s face, ignoring his indignant yelp.

“Hardly,” he bites out, rolling his eyes.

“Iwa-chan is very rude,” Oikawa declares, primly setting the cushion down on his lap. Before Iwaizumi can get started on _Iwa-chan,_ though, Oikawa disarms him with a winning smile and an extended hand. “But I suppose I can put up with it while working with you.”

It doesn’t feel ominous, this moment; not at all auspicious or foreboding. Later on, Iwaizumi thinks it should have. For now, though, he simply squints a little, trying to see past the magazine-worthy grin Oikawa wears and finding all the cracks have been papered back over.

“Looking forward to it,” he says, heavy with sarcasm, but takes Oikawa’s hand anyway. The other man hums, satisfied, and squeezes Iwaizumi’s hand lightly.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Oikawa replies, and something about the way he says it — lingers, like his fingers on Iwaizumi’s palm, dragging over warm skin. But before Iwaizumi can look deeper, Oikawa is up and off the couch, trotting off to his manager.

“Well,” Hanamaki says behind him, amused, “this is looking interesting.”

Iwaizumi chokes on a laugh, shaking his head as he turns to his bandmates.

“We’ll see.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i was on twitter saying sometimes you just want to write something absolutely tropey and cheesy involving your favorite ship bc it's comforting, which led to my idol!oikawa x frontman!iwaizumi AU. and then tea ended up creating a sketch for it, which gave me all sorts of ideas that have since run away from me. and since slumber is a massive enabler, this has now evolved into a one-shot, to which i will add further one-shots bc i have no patience to worldbuild an entire 60k chapter fic but i CAN write a bunch of single-part fics to expand on whatever HCs i have for this AU. which is a lot, bc my brain got carried away.
> 
> anyw i hope y'all liked the intro!! i'll come back later with more content. in the meantime, come say hi on twitter where i will inevitably be yelling about more HCs/content for this AU — i'm [@redluxite](https://twitter.com/redluxite) ^__^ you can also check there for ways to support my writing. thank you for reading!


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